Articles in the Parliament Category

The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Canon Sir Tony Baldry): The Church Commissioners do invest in petrochemical companies. These investments are managed in line with our ethical investment policy. The commissioners intend to continue to engage collaboratively with other shareholders and the industry to encourage greater transparency and transition to a lower-carbon economy.

Canon Sir Tony Baldry: The Church Commissioners and the Archbishops Council are committed to paying the living wage and ensuring that all staff and contractors who are employed at directly owned commercial and residential properties are paid at least the living wage. Other parts of the national institutions, including the Church of England, are committed to paying the living wage and are following the Living Wage Commission’s recommendations to put in place a transitional programme that involves all staff being paid the living wage by 2017.

The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Canon Sir Tony Baldry): The Heritage Lottery Fund makes money available for church repair and restoration. The Chancellor of the Exchequer recently announced a £15 million fund to assist churches with roof repairs. There are other sources of funding, such as help from landfill tax credits, to a number of charities and foundations that regularly and generously support repair, reordering and restoration work in parish churches. Details of possible funding can be found at www.churchcare.co.uk.

Canon Sir Tony Baldry: The Church of England is committed to being a Christian presence in every community. The recently published “Growing the Rural Church” report identifies a number of recommendations to help rural multi-church groups to flourish.

Canon Sir Tony Baldry: Like any Anglican cathedral overseas, St George’s cathedral in Jerusalem is financially independent of the Church Commissioners. However, I would hope that everyone possible would support the work of the friends of St George’s cathedral in Jerusalem, a UK registered charity that has the Archbishop of Canterbury as patron.

The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Canon Sir Tony Baldry): A copy of the House of Bishops’ pastoral letter has been sent to every Member of Parliament. The letter makes it clear that it is not a shopping list of policies that the bishops would like to see, and that if anyone claims that the pastoral letter is saying, “Vote for this party or that party”, they have misunderstood it, but that there is a need to focus on the common good and the participation of more people in developing a political vision.

Sir Tony Baldry: The Archbishop of Canterbury visited 36 of his fellow archbishops during his pilgrimage around the Anglican Communion. In his presidential address to the General Synod in November, he reported that it was a “flourishing…but also a divided Communion.”

Sir Tony Baldry: The Church Commissioners’ ethical investment policy prevents investment in pharmaceutical companies when more than 10% of their main business involves human or embryonic cloning. No such companies have been identified to date.

The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Sir Tony Baldry): The central argument of “On Rock or Sand” is that we should seek to enhance the well-being, and the personal and communal flourishing, of all in society, and to seek the common good—or the “common profit”, as the book calls it—and that no one should be left behind. These are principles entirely in accord with the objectives of the Church Commissioners.